1. Field
The present invention relates to apparatus for maintaining a desired gas atmosphere about the head of a patient, especially an infant patient.
2. State of the Art
In many instances it is important to administer oxygen to patients and, particularly infant patients, during hospital care. Oxygen has been conventionally applied to small infants within incubators in controlled amounts. However, the environment in the incubator is subject to undesirable fluctuation during numerous manual care of the infant.
Various hoods and face masks have been proposed to fit over the head of the infant. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,552,391 and 4,022,200 and the references cited therein. Such hoods and masks have been rather cumbersome devices which inhibited quick easy access to the patients head. These devices were rather costly and thus could not be discarded after use, but had to be cleaned and sterilized for further use with a different patient. In spite of such cleaning and sterilization, cross contamination and nosocomial infections were common with the reusable hoods.
3. Objectives
A principal objective of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive disposable hood which is easily and quickly removable from the head of the patient when required but which is otherwise securely held about the patient's head. Another objective is to provide a generally compact hood having a shape such as to minimize the possibility of the patient's mouth or chin from coming into contact with the hood. A further objective is to mold the hood from an optically clear material and shape the hood so that the sides and the top are joined in arcuate contours with no sharp corners to distort the image seen through the hood. An additional objective is to provide a novel attachment means and diffuser for connecting a flexible hose or conduit to the hood and wherein the attachment means and diffuser does not extend significantly into the patient head area within the hood.